One of the most confusing and misunderstood parts of the Harry Potter series is the reason Harry Potter did not die in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle Of Hogwarts.
Harry and Voldemort are interlinked because of the prophecy that says "Neither can live when the other survives", meaning that one of them has to kill the other at the end.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...and the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal but he shall have power the Dark Lord knows not... For neither can live while the other survives....
During the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry finds out the awful truth that when Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby, Voldemort accidentally created a Horcrux inside of Harry.
This means that if Harry tried to kill Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts and was successful, it would not actually kill him. Voldemort would live on by using the Horcrux inside of Harry as a crutch. As Harry has seen inside Professor Snape's memory, in order for the Horcrux inside of Harry to be destroyed, Harry himself must die.
After Voldemort sends the message "Join me in the Forbidden Forest and confront your fate". Harry being the hero that he is, goes into the forest, unarmed, his wand in his jacket and he willingly lets Voldemort kill him.
Now, here is where the confusion lies. There are a few theories that many people think are canon but they are not. Let's dive into them.
Theory #1
Many people think that Harry did not die because he was the master of death, owning all three of the Deathly Hallows - the Elder Wand, which Voldemort actually used to kill him, the Resurrection Stone, which Harry used to see his dead loved ones and the Invisibility Cloak, which had been passed down in his family for years.
This however, is not the reason why Harry did not die. This is actually just a fan theory -- a fact that many people don't know, because it has become so accepted.
Theory #2
This theory says that Harry, Voldemort, Snape and Dumbledore are the representations of the three brothers and death. Voldemort is Antioch, who got the Elder Wand, craving power. Snape is Cadmus, who got the resurrection stone, and lost the love of his life. Harry is Ignotis, who got the cloak, and when he was ready, he welcomed death like an old friend. Dumbledore is Death. When Harry dies, Harry greets Death, or Dumbledore, as an old friend, just as Ignotis did.
This one is probably the best Fan Theory anyone has every made. J.K. Rowling herself says it is her favourite Fan Theory.
Now, I would be willing to bet that many of you are thinking that you already know why he didn't die and I'm positive that almost all of you would be wrong.
The biggest misconception people have with this scene is that Harry did not die because the killing curse hit the Horcrux, instead of Harry; the Horcrux essentially taking the bullet for him. But this is not true.
While he's in Rowling's version of Heaven, Harry speaks with Dumbledore, and this is where everything is explained; but again, it's extremely confusing. So let me break it down for you.
“But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse,” Harry started again, “and nobody died for me this time — how can I be alive?”
This takes us back to the night that Voldemort tried to kill Harry in Godric's Hollow, the first time he used the killing curse on Harry. Before he did so, Harry's mother Lily jumped in front of him and sacrificed herself for her only son. This triggered one of the most powerful pieces of magic there is - "Love". Because Lily sacrificed herself, she put a protection on Harry making sure that no harm could come to him. So when Voldemort tried to kill Harry, the spell rebounded and hit Voldemort himself.
"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection for ever. It is in your very skin."- Dumbledore
Realizing this, Dumbledore figured out a way for this protection to live even longer, 16 years to be exact. By taking Harry to Petunia's house, the protection lived on inside of her, because Lily and Petunia shared the same blood. With this protection, Voldemort could not touch Harry, and if he did, it would physically hurt him.
When Harry turns 17, the protection would have been lifted. So during the Deathly Hallows, there should be no protection, right? However, there was.
Going back to Harry and Dumbledore's conversation, Dumbledore asks Harry to think why he didn't die and Harry says it's because Voldemort took his blood. This takes us back to the love protection. As I said, because of the protection, Voldemort could not touch Harry. But Voldemort found a way around his when he got his new body in the Goblet of Fire. He had Wormtail take out Harry's blood and mix it into the equation.
It did exactly what Voldemort wanted it to do. The protection was inside Harry's blood and now that very blood coursed through Voldemort's veins. This made the protection cancel out and Voldemort can now touch Harry without being harmed.
This was a genius move on Voldemort 's part, however, it would later come to be his downfall. Dumbledore's plan to use Lily's protection to protect Harry should have gone away when he turned 17 and everyone thought that it did. But Lily's protection lived on inside of Voldemort. Because he had Harry's blood inside of him, the protection lived on. Dumbledore explains this by saying:
"His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you"
Main Reason why Harry didn't die
As I said before, many people think that the Horcrux essentially took the bullet for Harry. But this has proven to be more wrong, especially, with the Love Protection explanation. Had the love protection that lived inside of Voldemort not been there, when Voldemort hit Harry with the killing curse, Harry would have died, along with the Horcrux. But because the protection was there, Harry lived while the Horcrux died. The Horcrux did not save him, the Deathly Hallows did not save him, it was the love protection inside of Voldemort that ultimately did the job.
This is how the Horcrux of Voldemort, living as a parasite inside of Harry, was finally killed and our dear Harry was saved.
Love is a deep, powerful, and ineffable emotion. It gives those who experience it the ability to do very great things. Someone full of hate (such as Tom Riddle) who has never known it even once in their entire life, cannot understand love's full magical properties. Love is one of the hardest and strongest kinds of magic there is.
"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all."
With this note, I would like to end the story. Keep loving and stay kind towards others.
